Living with Snow

The snow fell gently on the warm cheek. Melted. Ran down to the chin. Big flakes. Many, then a few. Showers of them building to a steady pace until the winter storm settled over us. An inch had fallen during the early morning hours. Now we had 3 inches and it looked like more would accumulate by nightfall.  

Wind gusts bounced tree limbs about. Bushes down low were moving and shaking, still not enough to scatter their snow load to the ground. Scurries of snow scooted over the sidewalk, more along the length of the driveway. 

As wind pushed snow over the lawn building a smooth landscape, drifts eddied along  surface hollows and quickly filled them in. It was beginning to look like a reliable snow storm, one which has a clear beginning, then a faltering sputter, followed by hours of intensifying snow fall. Drifting snow with wind blasts, the house began to creak. 

By the end of it, the storm dumped 14 inches of snow on us. The whole family began shoveling the driveway. We Californians with one snow shovel, used rakes and spades to move the white mountain. Then neighbors lent us their tools, and the five of us cleared the drive. Until the plow came thru and isolated us again at the mouth of the driveway! 

It took us another hour to move that heavily compacted snow away to the side. 

Mom grew up in Minnesota. Rural farmland Minnesota. She knew about winter. She knew about coping. Out came the hot chocolate. 

Dad was a native Chicagoan. He knew winter well, too. He lived throughout the Midwest following his clergyman father to little outposts in Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois. Then in Minnesota he went to university, met mom, married and began his career in Chicago. Moving a few years later to southern California, my sister and I were born and joined our brother who was a Chicago native. 

We moved to the western end of Massachusetts when I was 11 years old. My sister was 13 and my brother was 16. We were thoroughly kids of the West. Warmth. Certainly no snow. Wind, no chill. Then we were introduced to New England winters!

Skiffing our shoe toes through thin nearly non-existent snow drifts, we quickly came to dislike winter. It was cold. It was colder than cold. Snow was icy cold. Snow melted inside mittens and socks and our bodies became uncomfortably cold. Painful even. Achy then numb. That cold. 

Dad could hardly keep the house warm enough that first winter. We had forced air heat fueled by an oil burning furnace. We learned to wear extra socks, even to bed. We all got electric blankets from the folks that Christmas (Dad worked for GE!). We learned to accept and cope with the cold and the snow. We tried ice skating and snow skiing. We sledded. We even tried riding our bikes in the snow (not a good idea!). In time we acclimated. 

Six years later we moved again, this time to upstate New York. By then sister was in college back in California, and brother was married and stayed in Massachusetts. Mom, Dad and I familiarized ourselves with the snow belt south of Lake Ontario and in a direct line of Lake Erie 120 miles to our west. Whatever the forces or weather Gods, Syracuse got an average of 135 inches of snow each winter. That’s pretty much one or two inches of snow each day with several large storms thrown in to ensure the 135 inch total was achieved. It usually was. Sometimes a lot more. Talk about acclimating to snow! It was a constant. You changed your schedule around the snow. You slogged through snow to school and back without thinking about it much (just stay out of reach of the snow plow’s cascading ‘throw’ when it zipped by!). And you shoveled snow. All the time. Every day. And if the forecast was for several inches tomorrow, you went out and moved existing mounds as much as possible so you had room to stack the new stuff when it arrived! Winter was discipline. It was constant. It began to blend into our routine unnoticed. Hard to think of it that way, but it eventually ebbed to nothing in our consciousness. 

Illinois was my choice for college location. And here I’ve remained for over 50 years. A different kind of winter. A different routine. Much softer. Some years nearly as bad as Syracuse, New York; but most years manageable and OK.  

Still I wonder about warm. I almost miss it.

February 1, 2012